- Grace In Autumn -- Lori Copeland, Angela Hunt

Grace In Autumn -- Lori Copeland, Angela Hunt

Written by Mike Noel

Tuesday, 26 April 2005

This book is the second in the Heavenly Daze series (see The Island Of Heavenly Daze). Like the first book this one has quite a few very funny situations. The "testimony" time during the church service is close to the top of my list of funny situations. But I won't spoil it. In contrast to the first, though, this book contains more sad and touching moments. It is also a lot more directly religious than the first book (not that this is necessarily a bad thing). The moral message in the book, or rather the Christian message in the book, is very strong and direct. In many ways I prefer for a story to reveal moral truth for me to discover rather than simply telling it to me directly. Despite the preachy tone I still enjoyed the book quite a bit.
Now a bit about the story. There are definitely some spoilers here so don't read the rest of this article if you care about that.

One complete story thread in this book deals with the Grahams. That is, Babette, Charles, and George, their precocious five year old. As an aside, I have six year old kids right now, and based on their behaviour I have a hard time believing that George is only five. He talks and acts a lot more like a 7 year old. Either that or my kids are way behind...

The Grahams run a gallery that sells fine art -- mostly paintings painted by Charles -- to the flood of tourists that flock to the town during the summer months. During the winter months business slows to virtual nothingness. This particular winter the Grahams are feeling the financial pressures a lot more than normal. Amazing circumstances provide them with all the money they need to meet their needs. Then their greed takes over and begins to tear the family apart. Only by refocusing on the things that really matter is the family able to mend their wounds and bring back peace.

This book also picks up with the storyline dealing with Edmund de Cuvier. In the first book he is bed bound due to cancer. The storyline finishes in this book in a very touching and satisfying way.

We also see two main new threads developing. The first deals with the "angel mail". By the end of the book the poor town is being inundated with nearly two dozen bags of "angel mail" per day. The solution to this problem hasn't been addressed yet. It should show up in the next book. The second new subplot has to do with Salt and Birdie. Their romance is budding but clearly Salt is hiding something (since I've already read the next book I know what it is...). It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Once again I congratulate the co-authors on creating a cheery and entertaining book. It is funny and easy reading. If you liked the first book in the series you will enjoy this one too.